THE SPECTRUM GAME DATABASE

BUBBLE BOBBLE

PUBLISHER
Firebird

AUTHOR
?

YEAR
1987

CATEGORY
Arcade

DESCRIPTION
Bubble Bobble is a 2 player single screen Platform shoot'em'up
and puzzle game.

CONTROLS:
Sinclair, Cursor or Kempston joysticks

INSTRUCTIONS
Bub and Bob are little dinosaurs who can blow bubbles and jump
around a lot.  The idea of the game is to jump around the screen
catching the baddies in bubbles and then popping them, turning
the baddies into fruit or other such pick-upable item. 

To catch a baddy inside a bubble, simply shoot the bubble into
the baddy.  The bubbles have limited range so you have to move
in quite close.  To pop the bubbles, simply walk into them or
jump on top of them.

If you take too long, the indestructable Baron Von-Blubba (?)
would appear and kill you after a little chase around the screen.
The only way to get rid of him is to complete the level.. or to
die.. 


CHEATS
When you pick up the umbrella and start to skip levels, pull
RIGHT on the joystick. This *should* make you skip more levels
than usual.

Multiface pokes:

Level n: 34313,n
Immortal: 43835,150   43836,195

+2A/+3 owners may need to patch the game when loading in 128K
mode: if you find that it crashes shortly after the controls have
been selected, then, during control selection, poke 23399,4.


SEQUELS
Bubble Bobble was followed by two more games (Rainbow Islands and
Parasol Stars) but only Rainbow Islands appeared on the Spectrum.

There is also another game called New Zealand Story which is
often associated with the games.


SCORES RECEIVED
Bubble Bobble scored 8/10 in Sinclair User.

URL
ftp://ftp.dcc.uchile.cl/pub/OS/sinclair/snapshots/b/????????.zip

GENERAL FACTS
The main characters, Bub and Bob, who were little dinosaur things
obtained almost cult status and were in almost every single
computer mag at the time.

NOTES
This is one of the best 2 player games for the spectrum, although
playing 2 player on 2 sinclair joysticks on a +2 or +3 caused
some control problems for player 2.